Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe

Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe was a master jeweller and silversmith and is one of the most important Swedish designers of the twentieth century. She is known as ‘Torun’ and is the first female silversmith to have received international recognition. Throughout her career, Torun worked in Sweden, France, Germany, and Indonesia. 

Torun’s jewellery references organic shapes and brings to mind plant leaves, blossoms, swirls, and the flow of water.
Her minimalist forms and simple lines are sensual and achieve reduced elegance. She frequently combined silver with found pebbles, shells, wood, seeds, and fossils and used comparably inexpensive materials, such as granite, rock crystal, moonstone,
and quartz.

Torun’s artistry stretched beyond the creation of physical objects. She saw her pieces as symbols that express an individual’s essence.

Simple silver neck rings with glass or rock suspended from thin arms belong to her most characteristic pieces. Torun used fine silver wire, skilfully coiled instead of soldered. Her work is characterised by a superb understanding of material and form.

Torun’s approach aligned with the Swedish design principles of the time, emphasising that all materials must be chosen for a purpose. A stone is not just a stone, it is a symbol. A pendant hangs from a necklace like a steady pendulum. Embracing different natural textures and colours, Torun created pieces that capture movement and life. She masterfully understood the materials she wielded.

The silver flows along the lines of the body like water,
and pendants hang like droplets on leaves.

Torun’s work can be seen in the collections of the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal, and the Louvre in Paris. These museum acquisitions spotlight Torun’s craftsmanship and the singular beauty of her creations.

Torun was inspired by abstraction and post-war modernism – her pieces bring to mind Kandinsky’s interpretation of movement as well as the graceful simplicity of the Scandinavian masters who would have influenced her education. Whilst living in France, she met Pablo Picasso, George Braque, and Henri Matisse. She made pieces that would adorn the bodies of various celebrities, including Billie Holiday, Ingrid Bergman, Oona O’Neill, Juliette Greco, and Brigitte Bardot.

“[Torun] stuck to her own personal themes, deepened them and refined them, ever faithful to her aesthetic of simplicity, functionality, and meaning.”
– Ann Westin, art historian and author of
Conversation with Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe

Fascinated by the natural beauty of pebbles found on a beach in France, Torun started using these in her work. She appreciated their low cost and noncommercial quality. It was during one of her walks on the beach, whilst collecting pebbles, that Torun met Picasso. Soon after, she was invited to exhibit her pieces at what later became the Picasso Museum in Antibes.

In 1959, Torun’s perhaps most remarkable and iconic piece was conceived – the ‘Mobile’ necklace.

Designed as a wraparound (torque) necklace, quartz balances the weight and allows for the piece to whirl around the neck. This was groundbreaking in jewellery design. No one had previously made an asymmetrical piece of this kind. In 1960, a year after Torun made the piece, she was awarded the Lunning Prize – the prestigious Nordic design prize. Torun believed that it was because of the ‘Mobile’ necklace and the recognition she received for it that she won the prize.

In honour of her award, an exhibition was held at NK Stockholm (Nordiska Kompaniet), where the first edition of the ‘Mobile’ necklace was sold. After twenty years of intense searching, Modernity’s Director Andrew Duncanson found this exact piece – a remarkable find given that only three or four were ever made.

It is impossible to think of Scandinavian design without Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe coming to mind. Her pieces are unequalled, and her iconic style remains unmatched.